Indiana’s Richard Lugar helped Mandela’s anti-apartheid cause

A boy with "Rest In Peace Nelson Mandela" painted on his face looks up to the skies during the memorial service for former South African president Nelson Mandela at the FNB Stadium in South Africa.
(Photo: Peter Dejong)

Nelson Mandela, who died Dec. 5 at the age of 95, was one of the great leaders of the 20th century. He is remembered not for leading his nation in war or for bringing it out of economic depression, but for courageously fostering peace and reconciliation in a country that easily could have descended into genocidal civil war.

When Mandela was released in 1990 to a hero’s welcome after 27 years in prison for opposing South Africa’s apartheid regime, he could have emerged filled with rage and hatred. But rather than seeking retribution or “victor’s justice” against his oppressors, he exercised magnanimity. Becoming South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994, Mandela strove to overcome the legacy of apartheid by embracing all the country’s ethnicities, including whites.

Apartheid, created in 1948 by the white Afrikaner minority, constructed a threefold scheme of racial categorization in South Africa: black, white and “colored” (mixed race or South Asian). The government placed people into categories that defined every aspect of an individual’s life, from personal and political freedom to economic and social mobility. Apartheid categorized people by their physical features, and methods were needed to determine if one was black or merely colored. A pencil would be placed in a person’s hair. If the hair was so curly that the pencil stuck, that person was categorized as “black,” and he or she became subject to all the degradations and restrictions that the white minority regime could muster. If the pencil fell through the hair, then that person was deemed “colored” and was entitled to more rights and opportunities than blacks--but less than whites. Whites, of course, did not have to go through the indignity of the pencil test, for they held the power. Apartheid was insidious and it violated the most basic standards of freedom and equality.

By the 1980s, with Mandela languishing in prison, a global movement to isolate the South African regime had become fully mobilized. A major question remained: What would the United States do? Speaking to Marian University’s global studies students just three days after Mandela’s death, former Sen. Richard Lugar shared his unique, inside perspective on the intense struggle to pass the U.S. economic sanctions bill that helped bring apartheid to an end.

It was 1986. Ronald Reagan was president, the Senate was in GOP hands and the House was controlled by Democrats. Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vehemently opposed apartheid, viewing it as morally intolerable. It was an emotionally charged issue, Lugar told the students, with some Democrats advocating all-out economic warfare against the regime and some Republicans opposing any sanctions because they saw trade with South Africa as good for business or because they supported the anti-communist apartheid government. Lugar weaved his way through this political gauntlet and crafted a set of sanctions that would isolate the regime’s leaders without harming the black majority. When President Reagan vetoed the bill, Lugar took the bold step of leading the charge to overturn the veto.

The Congressional Quarterly Almanac for 1986 notes that, “The key actor in the Senate was Lugar, normally one of Reagan’s most loyal and effective supporters. Lugar was the main architect of the Senate bill.” The Hoosier senator was denounced by some fellow Republicans, including Reagan’s communications director Pat Buchanan and Sen. Jesse Helms, who predicted that Lugar “would be responsible for turning South Africa over to ‘militant blacks’ and ultimately the Soviet Union.” Lugar, ignoring the attacks, declared from the Senate floor that “We are against tyranny, and tyranny is in South Africa!” The Senate passed the veto override 78-21.

The world needs more Mandelas today. One look at recent headlines from Syria, Iraq, Thailand or the Central African Republic underscores just how blessed was the world — and not just South Africa — to have Nelson Mandela as a voice for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. America needs more public servants like Dick Lugar to stand up for what’s right, put country ahead of party, and reach across the partisan divide to get things done.

Atlas is associate professor of political science and director of the Richard G. Lugar Franciscan Center for Global Studies at Marian University.